On Saturday, more the fifty local students (which means hundreds of people, all told) took in an afternoon of dramatic storytelling at Malad Elementary School.  On the one hand, the ostensible story was an adaptation of the fairytale “Little Red Riding Hood,” which had been expanded to make room for a literal cast of dozens.  On the other hand, the real story of the week was the  rare educational opportunity provided to MES students by the PTO, Hess Pumice, and the Missoula Children’s Theatre.

In last week’s paper, we ran a complete list of the cast for the play, which was composed of students from all grade levels and acting experience.  In this week’s paper, we talk with the MCT representatives.  Amanda Fielding and Emma Walther who were the play’s directors, costumers, workshop leaders, and all-around arts gurus over the course of the week. One addition from last week is Daisy Huckaby, who was recruited at the last minute to fill in as accompanist, and did an amazing job!  

Amanda Fielding explained that MCT has been a part of her life for a long time, and something that she loves.  “I grew up doing MCT shows in my town back in Pennsylvania,” she stated. “In each town we get to work with so many talented kids and inspire them to step outside their comfort zone. And who knows, maybe inspire some to want work for MCT. Working with MCT is wild. You’re like this magical mystery person who shows up for a week, teaches the kids a show and maybe do some theatre workshops with the school, and then you’re gone and off to the next town to do it all again. The mission statement of MCT is “To empower children and adults, develop lifelong skills, and enrich communities worldwide through theater education and performance.”  And that’s what we do.  We go to communities all over the world, a lot that might not get much arts education.  Sometimes we’re the only opportunity for the arts that kids get.”

Amanda’s cohort Emma Walther, who played the Big Bad Wolf and served as the on-stage support for the student actors, agreed. “It’s been very rewarding! Every week is something different. Traveling from town to town and getting to know the community and seeing their passion for theatre throughout the process of putting on the show each week is very fulfilling. And it makes me happy to see the kids light up when getting the chance to perform. But it also feels bittersweet to have to say goodbye at the end of each week. I’d describe MCT’s mission as spreading the love of theatre to kids far and wide that might not otherwise be exposed to it.”

Students had less than a week to audition, practice, and perform the play for a full house.

 For those who haven’t had a student participate in the program, the MCT members arrive at a town like Malad, armed with costumes and a script, and immediately hold auditions to cast the parts.  They then spend the week rehearsing, while holding workshops for all the students of the school. “We start auditions on Monday and cast everyone by the end of the day,” Walther said. “Then we do rehearsals until Friday or Saturday.  Also at some point during the week, we’ll be making calls to our next two future tour stops prepping for our arrival as well as doing the laundry for the costumes. The set is also typically put up on either Thursday evening or Friday morning. After the last show, we then take the set down, collect costumes and scripts pack everything in our truck, and prep for heading to our next tour stop.

“Most of the time we have six-ish days to put the show together.” Fielding added. “Most of the time too we have workshops with the students where we get to teach a little more in depth about specific kinds of acting. We have all kinds of workshops: Acting, Improv, Mime, and Playwriting. We also need to set aside time in the week to do the laundry from the previous week’s show, and call our next two towns to make sure all the details are sorted out. And for the kids, they have 5 days worth of 4 hour rehearsals to learn an hour long musical. Some of them don’t even come to rehearsal until Wednesday, so some kids only have 3 days to learn everything.” 

The workshops themselves, Fielding noted, “are like short simple lessons in the basics of different acting techniques. The goals of all of them are to give kids some new skills and work on team building. Every workshop has some aspect of cooperation. Usually some of the kids who do the workshops are also in the show and doing the workshops helps them with how they perform.”  Walther provided an example of a typical class: “the Acting workshop consists of three activities representing Imagination, Memorization/Concentration, and Observation (the tools for acting). Then, we’d have a final activity blending them all together such as creating a scene from a made up movie and then voting on the best scene for older groups or having kids take turns acting as a character for younger groups.”  

The setup of the stage allowed the directors to work with the large number of students easily between scenes.

As a result of the mission of the program, Fielding has been to many small towns like Malad, and had a range of experiences.  “I’ve been all over so I’ve got great examples. There was one town, Aurora, Indiana. I was there a few years ago and it was their first time having MCT come. They had 9 kids come to audition and my tour partner and I had to cut down the show. We kept all the major plot points but had to edit around a few characters that we didn’t have. So we made the show (The Secret Garden) work with what we had. And then there’s Unalaska, Alaska. A small fishing town where MCT coming in is one of the major events of the year. They have a good size group of kids who are beyond excited to have MCT come. The only major difference I have seen is in some town everyone knows what MCT is, and in others folks have no clue what MCT is.”  For her part, Walther noted that “what I’ve found in the smaller more rural towns is that there is a very strong sense of community where everyone
knows everyone.”

As to their experience in Malad, Walther said, “The week went very smoothly! For the first time, we got the audition done ahead of schedule and the kids were very fast learners. The enthusiasm from everyone for the show was especially strong here. It was also nice to explore what the town had to provide locally. We went out to a nice local Mexican restaurant after dress rehearsals with Callie Werk and her family which had some amazing taco fajitas!”

There were many “groups” of actors, but everyone agreed that the most rascally were the raccoons!

 Fielding observed that “the kids learned their stuff incredibly fast. There were times Emma and I were at a loss for what to do. One night we got through the show almost two times because of how on top of it these kids were. The big takeaway I have is the smiles on the kids faces when they would come backstage and be hyping each other up.” 

Fielding believes that theatre is very important for young learners.  “It teaches them life skills,” she said. “Working together. Putting others first. Patience. Communication. And it breaks some kids out of their shells and makes them more confident.”  Walther agreed, stating “It allows students to break out of their shell! I know for me, being relatively quiet growing up, it was the one time I felt like I could open up more and not feel out of place doing so. I think it also helps younger students be more present and aware of their emotions and those
around them.”

Walther hopes that the lessons learned carry forward, and she thinks parents can help with that.  “Parents can acknowledge how hard their kids worked on this past show and look for theatre/theatre adjacent activities (like dancing or singing) they can get their kids involved in locally (there are many options for classes online as well!). They can also encourage their children to use the skills they picked up this week by having them think of their next school presentation as a chance to perform or that their next interaction with a peer is a chance to be someone new they can break out of their shell with,” she said.

Fielding agreed.  “Believe in your kid’s dreams,” she said.  “I know when I told my parents at age 10 that I wanted to work for MCT they encouraged me to do acting any chance I got. They helped me look into schools with theatre programs, I even went to one of the summer camps in Missoula, MT. Just encourage your kids to follow their dreams. No matter how big. I part I played recently one of her lines was “The stars are the limit.” You should always dream big and strive to reach that goal.” 

The stages, costumes, and props are re-used from town to town, but take on their own unique appeal in each place.

The MCT event last year was canceled, due to technical and scheduling circumstances.  The students at Malad Elementary seemed delighted that the show was able to go on this year, and can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next visit!